Anything But Normal, Nuestra Vida!

Monday, February 8, 2016

The Perfect Super Bowl Food!

I take food AND football seriously! So what's better than combining the two for the Super Bowl? In searching for yummy food to serve at our small party I stumbled upon the PERFECT thing, a stadium made of food! The hardest part was making the stadium form from a box, but once that was made it was simple!

It all started with a box...

and some foil!

All I had was a tiger, so I ended up painting him black and then completely
forgot to add him to the final product. Oh well, its the thought that counts.

Lots of cream cheese and pretzels.

And chex people!

Cilantro side lines and a base of refried beans.

End zones made of a corn cheese dip and a guacamole field.

Sour cream lines, numbers, and team names.

Goal posts

And some players...had to add our Titans lego guy scoring a touchdown!

That smile says it all!

I had SO MUCH FUN making this!!

Cute guy rooted for the Panthers!

Let's eat!!

The goal post bit the dust first!

The best part was that it tasted good too! What's the point of food if it doesn't taste good right?!

Congrats to the Titans, I mean Broncos, on the win!! Happy Super Bowl!!!

Saturday, June 27, 2015

Favorite Side Dish

I have a hard time with side dishes. I can find and make fabulous main dishes, but for some reason I am constantly stuck on the sides. I normally end up making some sort of salad, but lets be honest, that can get boring...even with the many different salads you can make.

I found this side dish a few months ago and now make it all the time, twice this week even!!!! This week when I made it, I didn't have all the fresh herbs (I didn't even have the herbs it called for dried), but it still turned out wonderfully!

The best part...its FAST! I know, its such a shocker that I would find quick easy recipes! Hey, when you have an insanely quick 18 month old, you do what you can. Thankfully this side tastes like it took forever to make! Yum yum yum!!!!

Peel several carrots (I make less than she says, I think I used 3) and quarter them.

Place the carrots on a cookie sheet and add olive oil, salt and pepper.

Cook on 450 or 475 (depending on oven) for several minutes I did about 15 minutes.

Right before serving add the vinaigrette sauce. I didn't have the herbs it called for so I just added some dried Italian herbs and it was still really really good! If you only make a few carrots then you can use the vinaigrette another time or even two. You can always leave the vinaigrette out too! My neighbor doesn't like vinegar, so she ate her carrots plain and loved them! To each his own!

Serve with pretty much anything. Last night we had carrots with risotto.

The other day we had the carrots with chicken pasta.

Happy side dishing.

Sunday, May 31, 2015

Lo Mein

I feel like I often cook the same things over and over, just tweeted a little. I have a recipe similar to this, but I loved the veggies and Sriracha in this, so I had to try it. Although I did really like the recipe I would add several things! 1. It needs more soy sauce, 2. a ton more Sriracha, 3. way more that 1/2 cup peas, 4. I would add meat next time for sure! 5. I also think it needs either sesame seeds or cashews. 6. and maybe some cilantro. Also, I totally didn't use spinach! I forgot I had used all the spinach I had in a salad the other day! Now that I have totally added a million things to the recipe, its probably no longer lo mein, but it would be yummier!!

I LOVE colorful meals!

Yeah, thats way more than 1/2 cup, but I couldn't stop!!! Love me some peas!

A nice crunchy veggie in a warm meal is always fantastic!

Dinner is served! (The boys didn't eat it! I am a failure of a mother!)

Tuesday, May 26, 2015

Quick Stovetop Pizza

I love pizza! I may still be a bit of a child at heart because I could eat pizza way more than I even like to admit. I like Papa Johns, I like Papa Murphy's, but I really really like homemade. BUT, my least favorite part is making the dough. The pizza always tastes good, but I can't ever make a pretty circle or get the dough thickness right.

Well, I found a super easy stovetop pizza that was delicious. Nolan even said, "wow, this may be the best pizza you have ever made!" Ummm...I don't ever want to make the other kind again! This was a million times easier and faster. With that said, I do have to add that ingredients play a big part. I put sausage, onion, garlic, parmesan, & shredded mozzarella as well as leftover cherry tomatoes, feta cheese, cilantro & spices. Surely if I had only put cheese it wouldn't have been the best ever.

From start to finish it took about 15 minutes per pizza. Thats faster than DiGiorno!! I didn't use a non-stick pan, I used an iron skillet and put a little olive oil on the pan before I mixed the dough. I really think the dough turned out much better because of the skillet! I had nothing like the "pancake" texture that the original post spoke of. I also stuck the pizzas under the broiler for about 2 minutes at the very end to get the cheese nice and beautiful!

Normally I would have pictures of each step, but a certain someone was very very needy tonight (reason number 7 thousand for why I am constantly looking for quick and easy meals like this). So all I have is the finished product and my word that it is the easiest pizza on the planet to make!! AND really good!!!

Happy pizza eating!!

Monday, May 25, 2015

A Birthday Party For A FOUR Year Old Knight

It all started with a simple Renaissance Festival coming to town. Auntie and I were sitting at the table talking about how we always say we are going to go to the festival and always end up missing it. The Renaissance Festival comes to a super cool castle in town every weekend in May. Santi has seen the castle way up on the hill many times as we have driven by. We asked Santi if he would like to go and see jousting and knights. He didn't understand jousting, so I had to explain. Well, I didn't have any horses, or knights, or javelins. So I improvised.

As a Mama, you have to improvise! Little cars and toothpicks, I got the point across.

Well, Santi was hooked. Ever since that day, its been jousting this jousting that. Then one day it clicked, why don't we have his birthday party at the Festival!? He LOVED the idea. We told him he could invite one friend, then I looked up prices and kids 5 and under are FREE!!! Never mind, invite several friends!!

About a month ago I drove down to Atlanta with a friend to visit our beloved Ikea! I love Ikea with my whole heart, don't get me started. Anyway, they have really cool kids toys too! I love how the majority are either wooden or fun felt hand-sewn...looking. I found a really fun tent for Santi's birthday, it just so happens to be a castle with a flag on top and everything. What are the odds? I had no idea at the time that we were going to be all about knights, castles, jousting etc!

The best part is he thought Nolan and I were the best and had planned it all out.

Yep! Totally on purpose!!

Soon after deciding he loves all things knights, he got the coolest book ever! Once a month, Santi gets a free book from the Dolly Parton Imagination Library, its amazing! Santi loves checking the mail to see if his or Luca's book arrived. Anyway, this month Santi got Not Your Typical Dragon, which happens to be all about a dragon and a knight!

This book could not have come at a better time! Seriously!

To add further to the amazement of castles and knights, Nana and Granddad went to England, where they have REAL KNIGHTS CASTLES! Santi sent Nana a video telling her she had to send him a picture of her standing in front of a real knights castle!

She is an amazing Nana and happily obliged!

And another...she also sent videos! Well done Nana!

It's the little things that make life so fun!

We went to the party store to pick out cool knights or castle plates and napkins, to our dismay they had none. Then we went to 3 more stores, apparently knights and castles are no longer the thing! Kroger doesn't even make cakes with castles on them (besides princesses)!! Seriously?! I didn't know we were thinking outside the box on this one! Don't all little boys like knights, castles, and swords? Apparently not!

FINE THEN!!! We will make our own cake!! The majority of castle cakes are for girls and princesses, but I found this super cool "knights" one!! And the best part, it looks pretty simple! YES!!! My insanely talented friend came over to help. She has done set and makeup for drama productions for years, so I knew she would be able to make the cake look fantastic!!!

Besides the cake itself, here is all you need. I used a large wooden cutting board for the base.

My friend bought these super cool knights figures to place around the castle.

I made 3 small square yellow cakes and stacked them.

We started placing the bricks and drawbridge!

Then we added the towers.

Yeah, my friend is pretty talented. She added water, grass, and rope to the drawbridge.

Knights in action!

The finished product!

We live in the 21st century, so thankfully we can find cool knights plates and napkins online. This place was great and super cheap!!

Boys are not allowed to go visit a real castle and see real jousting by real knights unless they too are knights! So I decided to make knights tunics for the boys! Thankfully I only had to make 6. Santi invited one of his best friends who happens to be a girl, but she is going to be a princess! I can not wait!!!!!

I bought 1/2 yard pieces of green and red felt, folded them in half and cut a circle for the head and trimmed the sides and bottom to the size I wanted.

I then used the cut tunic as my pattern.

I made one smaller for little Luca, so he wouldn't look like he was wearing a dress!

I bought 1/4 yard of white felt and cut out some crosses.

I also made some shields.

I decided to put the shields behind the crosses. I kinda just made it up as I went along!

Here is the idea.

I then started sewing each piece on!

Santi was VERY excited and wanted to watch the whole process! Also, it was a really hot day and he had been playing outside. He has swim suit bottoms on!

He then wanted to take pictures of me sewing!

Fast forward to 6 finished tunics. Add a little rope around the waist, a sword and shield in hand, and you have a fancy 4 year old knight! He didn't want to take it off!

THEN I was telling Santi's Na-Na (one of my close friends) about how crazy it was that knights, castles, etc are no longer the thing and she found an amazing dragon piñata!

He was fantastic!!!

My dad was brave!

Ready to slay the dragon!!!

Everyone got to try and slay the dragon!!

Finally after a lot of hard work, CANDY!

The castle at the festival!

Santi was in awe!

Real live jousting!

There was a 100% chance of rain pretty much all day. It sprinkled on us a few times, but pretty much the sky cleared just in time for the festival! We were very grateful!